'Imminent attack' in US prompted air strikes on Khorasan group in Syria

Elizabeth Wasserman and Tony Capaccio

Air strikes against the militant Khorasan Group in Syria were prompted by plans for an "imminent" terror attack on US soil, the Pentagon said.

"We believe the individuals plotting and planning it were eliminated" in the eight US air strikes, Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, said in an interview with ABC's Good Morning America program.

US President Barack Obama delivers a statement at the White House in Washington on the air strikes in Syria. Photo: Reuters

The militant organisation was made up of a "network of seasoned al-Qaeda veterans" preparing to attack US and western interests, the Pentagon said. No further details were given about the plots.

"Last night we also took strikes to disrupt plotting against the United States and our allies by seasoned al-Qaeda operatives in Syria who are known as the Khorasan Group," President Barrack Obama said on Tuesday (local time) when addressing the air strikes in Syria. "Once again it must be clear to anyone who would plot against America and try to do Americans harm that we will not tolerate safehavens for terrorists who threaten our people."

Related Content

US officials said that the group called Khorasan - the word refers to a geographic area most of which is in modern-day Iran - has emerged in the past year as the cell in Syria that may be the most intent on hitting the United States or its installations overseas with a terrorist attack. The officials said the group is led by Muhsin al-Fadhli, a senior al-Qaeda operative who, according to the State Department, was so close to Osama bin Laden that he was among a small group of people who knew about the September 11, 2001, attacks before they were launched.

Fadhli, 33, has been tracked by US intelligence agencies for at least a decade. According to the State Department, before he arrived in Syria, he had been living in Iran as part of a small group of al-Qaeda operatives who had fled to the country from Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks. Iran's government said the group was living under house arrest, but the exact circumstances of the al-Qaeda operatives were disputed for years, and many members of the group ultimately left Iran for Pakistan, Syria and other countries.

Advertisement

In 2012, the State Department identified Fadhli as al-Qaeda's leader in Iran, directing "the movement of funds and operatives" through the country. A $US7 million ($7.9 million) reward was offered for information leading to his capture. The same State Department release said he was working with wealthy "jihadist donors" in Kuwait, his native country, to raise money for al-Qaeda-allied rebels in Syria.

US officials had warned in the past week that despite the current focus on Islamic State, the intelligence community needs to continue watching less high-profile terrorists.

Muhsin al-Fadhli, who has a $US7 million price on his head, was a possible target for the air strikes on the Khorasan Group in Syria.

"What we can't do is let down our guards for any one of these groups," CIA Director John Brennan said at a September 17 conference on intelligence issues in Washington. "You have to be looking at some of these smaller groups."

Those include the al-Nusra Front, which has ties to al-Qaeda and has made clear its intent to launch attacks outside of the Syrian battleground. Speaking at the same conference, James Clapper, director of US National Intelligence, said the Khorasan Group, part of al-Nusra, represents a threat on par with Islamic State. The Khorasan Group is also part of the core al-Qaeda that operates along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.

Compared with Islamic State, fighters for al-Nusra keep a lower profile on the internet, with most videos aimed at local Muslims, according to the Mapping Militant Organisations project at Stanford University in California. The videos or postings generally don't show identifiable western fighters, even though the group attracts the second-largest contingent of foreign militants in Syria.

The core group was dispatched from the tribal areas of Pakistan to recruit European Union and US passport holders coming to Syria to wage jihad, and some US intelligence officials think it also may be recruiting in Libya and Somalia, also magnets for young, disaffected Muslims.

A chief concern is the group's apparent link to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's leading bomb designer in Yemen, Ibrahim al-Asiri, whom the US has targeted with drones, so far without success. His specialty is said to be bombs designed into clothing and implanted in the human body.